Electronically steerable phased-array antennas may be implemented on multilayer printed circuit boards (PCBs) by stacking multiple planar layers together that include manifold layers and radiating element layers to achieve an antenna far field pattern at a desired frequency. Surface waves may excite on the printed circuit board when radio frequency energy is received at an edge of the printed circuit board. For instance, surface waves may propagate where two layers of media intersect, e.g., between a metal ground plane layer and a dielectric layer. These surface waves cause significant amplitude ripple across the frequency dependent and scan dependent radiating element layers, and thus, severely degrade the overall performance of the phased-array antenna.
Conventional techniques for suppressing surface wave excitation across antenna printed circuit board stacks include placing multiple rows of resistively terminated dummy antenna elements around a perimeter edge of the printed circuit board and placing a magnetic microwave absorber material around the perimeter edge of the dummy elements and attached to a ground plane layer of the antenna printed circuit board stack. While effective for attenuating surface wave propagation across antenna printed circuit board stacks, these conventional techniques require additional materials due to the use of the absorbing material added around the antenna edge, resistors needed for terminating the dummy edge elements, and additional printed circuit board material to accommodate the dummy elements. Accordingly, conventional phased array antenna printed circuit board stacks using additional dummy antenna elements and/or magnetic microwave absorber materials for suppressing surface wave propagation are associated with high manufacturing and material costs unsuitable for use in broadband wireless Internet access with low-cost, high volume consumer electronics.